I've found through trial and error that Linux works automaticaly with wireless
adaptors with 'Atheros' chipsets. My son found a cheap usb adaptor at Walmart
and it worked on his Dell laptop. I investigated & found it had Atheros chipset.
I have 2 desktops with Ubuntu & found Airlink cards employ Atheros as well. The
computers saw them and did not need ndiswrapper or command line manipulation.